ISSUE:

1.) Whether or not the case at bar a political or justiciable issue. If justiciable,
whether or not petitioner Estrada was a president-on-leave or did he truly
resign.

2.) Whether or not petitioner may invokeimmunity from suits.

HELD:

The Court defines a political issue as those questions which, under the Constitution, are to
be decided by the people in their sovereign capacity, or in regard to which full
discretionary authority has been delegated to the legislative or executive branch of the
government. It is concerned with issues dependent upon the wisdom, not legality of a
particular measure.

The Court made a distinction between the Aquino presidency and the Arroyo presidency.
The Court said that while the Aquino government was a government spawned by the direct
demand of the people in defiance to the 1973 Constitution, overthrowing the old
government entirely, the Arroyo government on the other hand was a government
exercising under the 1987 constitution, wherein only the office of the president was
affected. In the former, it The question of whether the previous president (president
Estrada) truly resigned subjects it to judicial review. The Court held that the issue is legal
and not political.

For the president to be deemed as having resigned, there must be an intent to resign and
the intent must be coupled by acts of relinquishment. It is important to follow the
succession of events that struck petitioner prior his leaving the palace. Furthermore, the
quoted statements extracted from the Angara diaries, detailed Estradas implied
resignation On top of all these, the press release he issued regarding is acknowledgement of
the oath-taking of Arroyo as president despite his questioning of its legality and his
emphasis on leaving the presidential seat for the sake of peace. The Court held that
petitioner Estrada had resigned by the use of the totality test: prior, contemporaneous and
posterior facts and circumstantial evidence bearing a material relevance on the issue.

As to the issue of the peitioners contention that he is immuned from suits, the Court held
that petitioner is no longer entitled to absolute immunity from suit. The Court added that,
given the intent of the 1987 Constitution to breathe life to the policy that a public office is a
public trust, the petitioner, as a non-sitting President, cannot claim executive immunity for
his alleged criminal acts committed while a sitting President. From the deliberations, the
intent of the framers is clear that the immunity of the president from suit is concurrent
only with his tenure(the term during which the incumbent actually holds office) and not his
term (time during which the officer may claim to hold the office as of right, and fixes the
interval after which the several incumbents shall succeed one another).